It's like the Jungle Cruise ride, but without the boat

At least Spartacus won most of his battles

Christmas and New Years bring us hallowed half days at the office and those much lusted after days off. Ah, the glee we feel as we almost skip to our cars to drive off to home and hearth and not look back.

Few of us are strangers to the Grim Reaper that shows up in the early afternoons of the last day off from work. We feel it’s Dementor like effect as it sucks the happiness out of us, reminding us that tonight you’ll have to set the alarm to wake up ‘on time’, to be at work ‘on time’. Ugh.

Come that first workday morning we grudgingly leave our beds and mumbling ancient Summarian hexes on those most deserving, we shuffle through the process of getting ready for work.
Well, that’s what I do anyway. And while this is going on I’m mentally preparing myself, too. Preparing for the office politics, that one person who corners you in the break room and never stops talking, trying to be okay with different shades of putty grey, etc.

By the time I was riding the elevator to the office floor I was mentally set. Not happy, but set. When I stepped through the office door I discovered all that mental effort was kind of like Spartacus boning up on his sword skills just before facing an army of 50,000 pissed of Roman Legionnaires. Optimistic.
What I failed to account for was that while I was taking off a long holiday weekend, so was the office building air conditioning. All the energy, momentum I’d psyched myself up with was snuffed out as I was drowned in hot, humid air. Suddenly all I wanted to do was lay my sweating head on my desk and let the heat pull me back to sleep. Thankfully I could fall back on my Swiss blood and trudge though. It’s 12:58 PM as I write this and it’s gone from hot and muggy to just warm.

Tonight it’s Taco Bell and Star Trek.

By the way, I’ve heard that it’s a kind of annoying how the Flickr photos don’t open a new window. I’m trying to find a way so it will. No luck yet. Any of you hot shot HTML gurus want to offer some suggestions, let me know.